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Friday, March 13, 2009

Making Life Better

I have a LO 4/5 of the way to done and several cards in various states of completion so the odds of another post today is high. But, I was just over at my friend Mary's blog and realized my comment was practically a blog post and it said a lot of the things that were on my mind.

I started Healthy, Wealthy and Wise (For the remainder of this post HWW) this week to get my life back on track. Was it off track? No, not really. But I knew I could be doing better and I work well within frameworks. HWW requires me to not just focus on one aspect of my life, something I tend to do if left to wander. For example, I've lost over forty pounds in the past nine months but I've let my mind go to mush and was buying apples at $4.00 a pound. Healthy, yes! And that is wonderful, but wealthy and wise need some attention too.

HWW was born from me trying to take a little time each day to insure that I am growing personally and moving our family in the right direction. Little things like exercise, reading good books, emptying the deepfreeze we don't use now that we're vegan to save $15 a month off our power bill - it all adds up. And if those little things are done everyday it can REALLY make an impact.

Yesterday afternoon I was at a difficult spot in my book and I asked the boys if they would mind if I read it aloud so I could keep focused and not skim that part. My oldest enjoyed the chapter so much he asked if I would pick up a copy of the book from audible.com (we subscribe) for him to listen to at night in bed. Had I not been tackling more difficult books, he would have missed this educational opportunity. Little things really do make a difference.

Last night I assessed the skill needed to cut four inches off my hair and give me blunt bangs. Deciding it wasn't a technical cut I got an eight dollar haircut... and it looks awesome.

Two little things but T is now enjoying a book I never would have considered offering him and my hair style cost $172 less than the last one. Quite the savings.

This economy has everyone concerned - or down right panicked - it is a terrific time to try something like HWW for yourself.

*Exercise and eating well will improve your mood and your ability to cope. There is nothing like endorphins!

*Read the books you've bought but never got to or go to the library and take out a few new ones. It'll get your mind off the steady stream of bad news without costing a dime.

*Trimming your expenses doesn't have to be all bad. Take out a vegetarian cookbook from the library and see what strikes your fancy. One meatless meal a week will reduce your grocery bill and your waist line.

*Grab one of those DVDs you had to buy or got for christmas (you bought them because you like them, right?) and pop some popcorn. Stay in, enjoy those you love.

*Use up your scrapbook stash, ink those stamps you bought, finish knitting that hat you started (Nicole!).

4 comments:

Thanks for sharing HWW with us. It is good to take stock of what you are doing and how you are doing it. It is kind of interesting to see how and where you can cut back on spending and change things.

I've always been a big fan of the library and spend a lot of time there. I've noticed in the past month that lots and lots of other people are spending time there too. I was amazed to walk in one day and find it was almost wall to wall people. I'd never seen that many people there before.

The man is bean-phobic, which is starting to infect the boys and keeping me from vegetarian living. I was veg from age 11 until 20, when I just got lazy, really. I hated making two meals.

I'm a HUGE libray fan...I've been there twice this week already! (Books I had on hold came in the day after we'd been there to do our weekly trip). Our library is fantastic, and one of the first places I think of when we donate money. Like with the kids school, donating to the library increases my quality of life, so it's likely cheating on the whole donation idea, but I don't think they mind,

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About Me

Perky, nihilistic, creative, homeschooling, foodie, artist from Oregon by way of British Columbia, Canada.
My work can be seen in Somerset Gallery, Somerset Life, Memory Makers, Scrapbooks Etc., Family Fun, Home Education, ScrapStreet, Scrapbook News and Review, Art Journey Journal and A Card a Day by Paper Crafts.